Quote Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie
My field has also a pretty stringent definition of "cause". I am an engineer, if something is wrong we try to find the root cause. I know we are just arguing over semantics here, but if micro tumors are there anyway (part of the natural system), what caused them to go el wacko? In my fault tree analysis, I would color that box red.
Here is the difference. Cancer cells (or any other organisms) are not designed, they are the ones that survived. There may not be a root cause per se. I'll try and explain in your terms. If you have a system of thousands and thousands dependencies, triggers and feedbacks, what is the root cause that makes it go off balance? You pull switches A and B, but if the C is on, A and B being on is good and if it's off A and B being on is bad. And if A and C are on, D is off and if the A is on and D is off C is good if B is on, but bad if it's off, etc. And it's somewhat different for every person. And I am talking only a primitive model, in reality there are no switches, but dependencies, so be my guest and find the cause and effect relations. The most you can do is measure the probability and say - there, when this "cause" is present this "effect" is observed more often.

I might as well say that your organisms's ability to be born, develop, heal and protect itself from the environment is the cause of cancer. We are not designed, and cancer is a side effect of evolution.